Value and Cost

It struck me in a session on the 'cost of e-learning' thinking about Marx's relationship between commodity, value and price that commodity values relate to price just as human values relate to cost.

It's not e-learning that costs; it's the values that underpin the decisions to buy it.

They cost, and not just in the finances of purchase. There's are many forms of human cost which are effected through the cost of values. training cost; morale cost; cultural cost; maintenance costs; control costs; etc...

The costs of our values are things which those values do. Might understanding the dimensions of cost help us understand the challenges of managing values within institutions?